E2E: Erik Meijer and Leslie Lamport - Mathematical Reasoning and Distributed Systems
- Posted: Mar 09, 2010 at 12:06PM
- 15 comments
A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable. -Leslie Lamport.
Leslie Lamport is a computer scientist and mathematician best known for his work with distributed systems. In fact, Dr. Lamport’s research contributions laid the foundations for the theory of distributed systems. He currently works in Microsoft Research
where most of his time is spent developing formal semantics (with mathematical logic) for specifying and reasoning about algorithms.
Here, Dr.
Erik Meijer, computer scientist and programming language/library designer, sits down with Dr. Lamport to discuss several aspects of Dr. Lamport's body of work in computer science.
Dr. Lamport's
TLA, the Temporal Logic of Actions, is a logic for specifying and reasoning about concurrent and reactive systems. TLA+ is the latest incarnation of this formal specification toolset.
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"When you understand something, then you can find the math to express that understanding. The math doesn't provide the understanding."
That's just one awesome quote
Agreed. Leslie is full of wisdom. It was a pleasure to meet him.
C
@Charles: So, maybe PEP is related to concurrency after all. (re: http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/Coffeehouse/534390-Friday-Non-Sequitur-Why-we-dont-implode/)
This reminds me of Wesner Moise's article about specification languages.
I'd be interested in hearing more precisely what Microsoft is using TLA+2 for.
http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2009/02/specification-languages.html
...And whether there is a convergence underway with all the specification languages at Microsoft (AsmL being another; Spec# being another still, etc.)
Will do. I think we'll dig into TLA specifically next time Leslie is in town.
C
Another great quote is at 48:48 (excellent time point, too): “The mathematics of computing; things like sets and functions and logic, are to computing what real numbers are to physics.”
C
He is also the author of LaTeX.
He is indeed. He and Erik didn't talk about that, however. The conversation was squarely focused on mathematical reasoning, algorithms and distributed systems...
C
That was very interesting and gives pause of thought on my software designs.
Thanks for the interview.
After listening to this carefully, weighing the thoughts and information that were provided, trying to listen carefully to detect a glimmer of proof that the interviewee knew how to apply his insights to the real world, I concluded that the guy that's going to change the way I program is the one with the short hair-cut. My fault, I'm an engineer that wears loud shirts.
Thanks for the info!
++
Congratulations, Leslie!
C
Finally Erik is back!!!
@Hans Schenker: Back to the future :)
We have to get him in the present tense. Sadly, he won't be in the Bay Area for build, otherwise we would have had him live! :(
One of these days. Magic ball says: sometime in May...
C
Is there a transcript, please?
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